I'm delighted this article pointed out this 21st-century phenomenon. It's not just social naturism declining; it's all social interaction. I had this same theory a while back. To test the hypothesis, I looked into other organized social activities unrelated to naturism to see if they had similar problems. It seems like it's true. Everything from church membership to bowling leagues to Boy Scout membership is down. So the question is now, why are people not interacting in person like they used to do? I have theories on this, which I'm also currently investigating. Social interaction began trending around 1990, so I'm looking into what was happening then for clues.
From what I've already found, the cause is a combination of hyper-capitalism and the rise of the Internet, two trends that emerged around 1990, give or take a few years. Essentially, we don't have "third places" anymore. Third places are informal spots to gather outside of work and home for social interaction. These have been a feature of society going back to ancient times. Naturist clubs would count as these. These places are gone now.
The Cold War ended with the collapse of Communism around 1990. A rival economic system was no longer keeping the worst aspects of capitalism in check. Long working hours, minimal pay, increasing wealth in the hands of the few, less stability, high inequality, and bad products made cheaply to increase profit are all things we are regularly dealing with now.
The insatiable desire for profit has led to work creeping into every aspect of our lives. Free time is a luxury now for most people. Home life isn't much better either. Being paid less and working more to make up the difference and the high price of basic goods due to inflation, which has been worsening since the 1990s, and price gouging, has led to instability in home life.
In the old days, people would escape from these two places by going to a third place, but they can't go there anymore because they don't have time or the money to spare. However, the internet, which came around 1993, offers a cheap, quick escape. People are spending more time online to build communities. This also has its drawbacks because now people are choosing to live in bubbles and are not exposed to people with different backgrounds, life experiences, and ages. This increases polarization and leads to more extreme thinking and acting.
It's a perfect storm for loneliness, which will only improve with the rise of third places again and drastic government economic intervention.
Sociology isn't an "exact" science like physics (which itself is exact only to a degree, depending on specific branches.) Forecasting the weather, earthquakes, etc. is only approximate, and the longer ahead the less accurate the results will be. The behavior of social systems is even less predictable. All sorts of unexpected things can make a huge difference - new technology, wars, pandemics, large hurricanes, financial crashes, etc.
As Yogi Berra (and several others) supposedly said, "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."
We can ask why social nudity in Western Europe and the U.S. sprang up in the first decades of the past century. Why did that happen? Many times such things can be traced to the activities of a few individual people - women's rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, etc. Given enough early supporters, they can snowball.
I wouldn't count out the revival of naturism - if only social conditions and enough of the right people come along to make it more popular again.
Thanks to my involvement with the Western Nudist Research Library, I've been studying the social nudity movement for the past 20 years. The conditions that led to the founding of naturism in the first decade of the past century are nearly identical to what is happening now. The only difference is that the people then did not live in fear like we do now. They saw what was happening to their world, they didn't like it, and they were not afraid to challenge it, or what would happen to them if they did.
I'm sure you know a lot about early U.S. naturism - much of it happened in southern California. Wasn't Kurt Barthel - a German immigrant - a major figure in the beginnings of U.S. nudism around 1930? The "Great Depression" started in 1929, so the economic situation was very different from now. And the U.S. was much more rural back then. So what are the ways relevant to naturism that conditions back then are "nearly identical to what is happening now"?
You need to further back. Early naturism began in Germany in at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
At that time, Germany was going through a massive shift from traditional peasant rural life to industrial capitalist. People who had for centuries been living in small close nit communities making a living off farming and trades that serviced their neighbors, were being forced to move to crowded and dirty cities and work under slave like conditions in industrial mills and factories. They were being paid not for their skills but simply to compensate them for sacrificing their time. Because of the pollution from the factories and germs from the cities, people were getting sick all the time and the new “breakthroughs”in modern medicine were making their health even worse. Drug use and addiction were rampant as well as alcoholism.
The first naturists were a group of young people who experienced all of this, and came to the conclusion that Industrial Revolution was a terrible mistake and they were better off the way things had been before.
This led to a massive rebellion by the youth called Lebansreform or Life Reform.
Nudism, Vegetarianism, Natural Holistic Medicine, abstinence from drugs, smoking, and alcohol. Were all highlights of the movement. A rejection of capitalism and industrialization and a return to simple country life and reverence and honoring of nature and traditional Germanic pagan practices.
This last part would actually be a major contribution to the rise of aryanism, nazism, and the third riche in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
How it got to America and therefore California. Was because of a group of German Lebansreform immigrants who were now targets of the nazis because of their non-conformist lifestyle.
These guys were called the Nature Boys. Kurt Barthel was not one of them. But he was a German immigrant with similar ideas because of Lebansreform.
The Nature Boys lived in Coachella near Palm Springs.
They were a major influence on the Beats in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The Beats in turn would influence the hippies in the 1960’s and 70’s. It all pretty much came to an end in the 1980’s when the conservatives took power in the USA.
Kurt Barthel’s brand of naturism, started out with many of the same themes as The Nature Boys, but these were later whittled down till only the nudism was left and there was more of an emphasis on fun and recreation then reformed living.
Naturism was not just about nudism, it was a wake up call for the environment and health and an antidote for the worst of capitalist civilization.
Thank you for sharing your insights. Like Dave’s (above) I, too, have been thinking about this societal trend and how popularity of social nudity has waned.
Two additional considerations I’d like to share:
1) I think there a confluence of trends. Go with me here for a moment…for a couple decades now, the notion that nudity equates to or leads to sexual deviation has become accepted by a critical mass of the general public. (Thinking about the justifications by zealous politicians who propose and support laws and ordinances banning nudity on public lands). Not only is the acceptance of this notion that nudity and sex are inherently linked very telling in itself (i.e. impact of narratives on social media; an overall rightward drift toward a moralism that harkens back to previous times), but this acceptance engenders a fear akin to “stranger danger.” Seeing a naked person must imply perverse or at least suspicious intentions. Additionally, we begin to swirl in a cycle as people of influence (politicians, “influencers”) make hay for their own ambitions by continually promoting these notions.
2) the pandemic has accelerated antisocial attitudes, suspicions and behaviors. The trends discussed in the post as well as the Atlantic article seem to have not only accelerated by have spawned deep roots.
These are some additional thoughts I wanted to share. Thanks.
You've pretty much just described the bubble I mentioned in my reply to my comment. These things were already in motion before the pandemic, but that just made things much worse much faster.
"The article in question is in the February 2025 Atlantic Monthly - already available online: The Anti-Social Century. Currently, it can be read without a subscription. (Not clear how long that may last.)"
It didn't - it is already behind a paywall. Yet another way to reduce communication...
I still have free access to the article, though as far as I can remember I've never subscribed to The Atlantic - in print or online. I am on their email list that just announces new issues and their articles. Most public and college libraries should have it (when it arrives).
AI like chatGPT is a planet destroying hyper energy hungry technology run by the slimmest people on earth. Minor 'positives' like this, that could easily be replicated by carrying around a pamphlet put together by actual people, are far eclipsed by the negatives of this technology.
Naturists especially should be banding together to deny AI in most of its generative forms. Especially chatGPT and it's like, that use more water than some small countries, are trained on stolen works and are replacing workers at a faster and faster pace.
So no. This is a ridiculous article and should be ignored completely.
I'm delighted this article pointed out this 21st-century phenomenon. It's not just social naturism declining; it's all social interaction. I had this same theory a while back. To test the hypothesis, I looked into other organized social activities unrelated to naturism to see if they had similar problems. It seems like it's true. Everything from church membership to bowling leagues to Boy Scout membership is down. So the question is now, why are people not interacting in person like they used to do? I have theories on this, which I'm also currently investigating. Social interaction began trending around 1990, so I'm looking into what was happening then for clues.
From what I've already found, the cause is a combination of hyper-capitalism and the rise of the Internet, two trends that emerged around 1990, give or take a few years. Essentially, we don't have "third places" anymore. Third places are informal spots to gather outside of work and home for social interaction. These have been a feature of society going back to ancient times. Naturist clubs would count as these. These places are gone now.
The Cold War ended with the collapse of Communism around 1990. A rival economic system was no longer keeping the worst aspects of capitalism in check. Long working hours, minimal pay, increasing wealth in the hands of the few, less stability, high inequality, and bad products made cheaply to increase profit are all things we are regularly dealing with now.
The insatiable desire for profit has led to work creeping into every aspect of our lives. Free time is a luxury now for most people. Home life isn't much better either. Being paid less and working more to make up the difference and the high price of basic goods due to inflation, which has been worsening since the 1990s, and price gouging, has led to instability in home life.
In the old days, people would escape from these two places by going to a third place, but they can't go there anymore because they don't have time or the money to spare. However, the internet, which came around 1993, offers a cheap, quick escape. People are spending more time online to build communities. This also has its drawbacks because now people are choosing to live in bubbles and are not exposed to people with different backgrounds, life experiences, and ages. This increases polarization and leads to more extreme thinking and acting.
It's a perfect storm for loneliness, which will only improve with the rise of third places again and drastic government economic intervention.
Sociology isn't an "exact" science like physics (which itself is exact only to a degree, depending on specific branches.) Forecasting the weather, earthquakes, etc. is only approximate, and the longer ahead the less accurate the results will be. The behavior of social systems is even less predictable. All sorts of unexpected things can make a huge difference - new technology, wars, pandemics, large hurricanes, financial crashes, etc.
As Yogi Berra (and several others) supposedly said, "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."
We can ask why social nudity in Western Europe and the U.S. sprang up in the first decades of the past century. Why did that happen? Many times such things can be traced to the activities of a few individual people - women's rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, etc. Given enough early supporters, they can snowball.
I wouldn't count out the revival of naturism - if only social conditions and enough of the right people come along to make it more popular again.
Thanks to my involvement with the Western Nudist Research Library, I've been studying the social nudity movement for the past 20 years. The conditions that led to the founding of naturism in the first decade of the past century are nearly identical to what is happening now. The only difference is that the people then did not live in fear like we do now. They saw what was happening to their world, they didn't like it, and they were not afraid to challenge it, or what would happen to them if they did.
I'm sure you know a lot about early U.S. naturism - much of it happened in southern California. Wasn't Kurt Barthel - a German immigrant - a major figure in the beginnings of U.S. nudism around 1930? The "Great Depression" started in 1929, so the economic situation was very different from now. And the U.S. was much more rural back then. So what are the ways relevant to naturism that conditions back then are "nearly identical to what is happening now"?
You need to further back. Early naturism began in Germany in at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
At that time, Germany was going through a massive shift from traditional peasant rural life to industrial capitalist. People who had for centuries been living in small close nit communities making a living off farming and trades that serviced their neighbors, were being forced to move to crowded and dirty cities and work under slave like conditions in industrial mills and factories. They were being paid not for their skills but simply to compensate them for sacrificing their time. Because of the pollution from the factories and germs from the cities, people were getting sick all the time and the new “breakthroughs”in modern medicine were making their health even worse. Drug use and addiction were rampant as well as alcoholism.
The first naturists were a group of young people who experienced all of this, and came to the conclusion that Industrial Revolution was a terrible mistake and they were better off the way things had been before.
This led to a massive rebellion by the youth called Lebansreform or Life Reform.
Nudism, Vegetarianism, Natural Holistic Medicine, abstinence from drugs, smoking, and alcohol. Were all highlights of the movement. A rejection of capitalism and industrialization and a return to simple country life and reverence and honoring of nature and traditional Germanic pagan practices.
This last part would actually be a major contribution to the rise of aryanism, nazism, and the third riche in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
How it got to America and therefore California. Was because of a group of German Lebansreform immigrants who were now targets of the nazis because of their non-conformist lifestyle.
These guys were called the Nature Boys. Kurt Barthel was not one of them. But he was a German immigrant with similar ideas because of Lebansreform.
The Nature Boys lived in Coachella near Palm Springs.
They were a major influence on the Beats in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The Beats in turn would influence the hippies in the 1960’s and 70’s. It all pretty much came to an end in the 1980’s when the conservatives took power in the USA.
Kurt Barthel’s brand of naturism, started out with many of the same themes as The Nature Boys, but these were later whittled down till only the nudism was left and there was more of an emphasis on fun and recreation then reformed living.
Naturism was not just about nudism, it was a wake up call for the environment and health and an antidote for the worst of capitalist civilization.
Thank you for sharing your insights. Like Dave’s (above) I, too, have been thinking about this societal trend and how popularity of social nudity has waned.
Two additional considerations I’d like to share:
1) I think there a confluence of trends. Go with me here for a moment…for a couple decades now, the notion that nudity equates to or leads to sexual deviation has become accepted by a critical mass of the general public. (Thinking about the justifications by zealous politicians who propose and support laws and ordinances banning nudity on public lands). Not only is the acceptance of this notion that nudity and sex are inherently linked very telling in itself (i.e. impact of narratives on social media; an overall rightward drift toward a moralism that harkens back to previous times), but this acceptance engenders a fear akin to “stranger danger.” Seeing a naked person must imply perverse or at least suspicious intentions. Additionally, we begin to swirl in a cycle as people of influence (politicians, “influencers”) make hay for their own ambitions by continually promoting these notions.
2) the pandemic has accelerated antisocial attitudes, suspicions and behaviors. The trends discussed in the post as well as the Atlantic article seem to have not only accelerated by have spawned deep roots.
These are some additional thoughts I wanted to share. Thanks.
You've pretty much just described the bubble I mentioned in my reply to my comment. These things were already in motion before the pandemic, but that just made things much worse much faster.
"The article in question is in the February 2025 Atlantic Monthly - already available online: The Anti-Social Century. Currently, it can be read without a subscription. (Not clear how long that may last.)"
It didn't - it is already behind a paywall. Yet another way to reduce communication...
I still have free access to the article, though as far as I can remember I've never subscribed to The Atlantic - in print or online. I am on their email list that just announces new issues and their articles. Most public and college libraries should have it (when it arrives).
Interesting article and comments. Thanks for sharing.
AI like chatGPT is a planet destroying hyper energy hungry technology run by the slimmest people on earth. Minor 'positives' like this, that could easily be replicated by carrying around a pamphlet put together by actual people, are far eclipsed by the negatives of this technology.
Naturists especially should be banding together to deny AI in most of its generative forms. Especially chatGPT and it's like, that use more water than some small countries, are trained on stolen works and are replacing workers at a faster and faster pace.
So no. This is a ridiculous article and should be ignored completely.